In this final part of our summer college preparation series, Lynn and Vicki discuss how to support your student on Move-In Day and throughout their first six weeks on campus. Parents and students who are prepared for the emotional peaks and valleys of transitioning into the world of college, are better able to feel in control of their experiences. In this episode we offer suggestions for how to support your student on this exciting new journey.

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This is one of our most popular – and perhaps important –  podcast episodes so we’ve decided to share it again.  The First six weeks of college can, in some ways, be a make or break time for some students. It’s definitely an emotional time as students try to navigate new academic situations and requirements at the same time that they try to find their footing socially in a new environment. Delicate parental support is important at this time, perhaps more than ever.

You might also like to listen to the first two episodes in this three-part college preparation series. It’s never too late to help your student with the transition.

#043 – Using Summer to Help Your Student Prepare for College – Part 1

#044 – Summer Conversations to Help Your Student Prepare for College — Part 2

As we discussed Move-In Day and your student’s transition to college during the first weeks of the fall semester, we referenced several earlier podcast episodes that expand on some of the things we covered. Here are some of the episodes you might find useful.

#021 – College Roommates: Navigating This Complex Relationship

#012 – Talking About the First Year Experience – An Interview with Dr. Silas Pearman

#009 – The Importance of Anticipating the Key Differences Between High School and College

#008 – Helping Your Student Take Advantage of College Resources

Lynn also mentioned one of her favorite books for college parents:

The Naked Roommate: For Parents Only by Harlan Cohen. It’s a great book to help you understand how to help your student.

And if you’re not sure you’re comfortable starting a conversation with your student about alcohol and drugs, or if you’re not convinced you need to have the conversation, we highly recommend Jessica Lahey’s new book, The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. It’s a compelling read and not only full of essential information, Lahey includes suggested prompts for getting the conversation started.

We also had the opportunity to interview Jess Lahey on the podcast. We highly recommend this episode: #038 – The Addiction Inoculation: An Interview with Author Jessica Lahey

And if you’d like a deeper dive into some of the topics we discussed, here are some College Parent Central articles that will help.

The Importance of the First Six Weeks of College

How Parents Can Help Make College Move-in Day a Success

The Culture Shock of Adjusting to College

14 Suggestions of What to Do If (Not Necessarily When) Your Student Is Homesick

Friends Along the Way: Your College Student’s Search for Friends

Is Your Student’s College Dorm Room Too Comfortable?

Don’t forget that you can listen to all of our previous podcast episodes here or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also go to followthepodcast.com/collegeparentcentral to add our podcast so that you’ll receive each new episode as we release it.

And finally, a request for your help. Podcast ratings and reviews are important to help our podcast become visible to more people who might want or need the information we share. We’ve made it even easier for you to leave us a review! Simply go to lovethepodcast.com/collegeparentcentral and leave us rating or review.

Note: Some links in our post are for affiliate products. If you use our links, College Parent Central receives a small percentage of your purchase price. This does not change the cost to you.  We think it’s only fair to let you know that.

Transcript:

Announcer: 1:03

Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. Whether your child is just beginning the college admission process or is already in college, this podcast is for you. You’ll find food for thought and information about college and about navigating that delicate balance of guidance, involvement and knowing when to get out of the way. Join your hosts, Vicki Nelson and Lynn Abrahams, as they share support and a celebration of the amazing child in college.

Lynn Abrahams: 1:41

Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. This is the place where we talk about all things that have to do with parenting our students as they prepare for and transition to and live through their college experience. So I am, my name is Lynn Abrahams, and I’m here with my friend and colleague, Vicki Nelson. We are both college professors, but we are also parents of college students. My role in college, in my work, has been working with students who have learning differences. I’ve spent many years working in a small liberal arts college working with students, but I also have two sons who have gone in and out of college, and so I think I bring more experience having to do with parenting than I do as a professional in higher ed to this podcast, and I’m here with my friend, Vicki.

Vicki Nelson: 2:51

and I am Vicki Nelson. I am also a college professor and also a parent. So Lynn has boys, I have girls and they’ve all headed off to college. So, yes, I think we both share our dual role. I’m a professor of Communication and I have served as Director of Academic Advising, so I’ve worked with a lot of students in a lot of different roles and different situations, and we have more years of experience together than we want to admit.

Lynn Abrahams

Want to admit!

Vicki Nelson: 3:28

Not admitting. And we’ve seen a lot of students who have succeeded and those who’ve struggled and lots of different situations. So it’s interesting to us to talk about that and then also the role of parents in all of this. We started working together, doing some workshops and then finally, to the podcast, when our kids went off to college and we realized that, even though we work in higher ed, it was overwhelming and there was so much to think about from a different perspective. So we have, in our last two episodes, talked about getting ready and preparing for college, thinking about some of the conversations to have with your student, thinking about the decisions that need to be made over the summer. It’s a very busy summer. You might want to go back and listen to those, and this time we want to move on toward the transition.

Lynn Abrahams: 4:28

And we’d like to focus on really the first six weeks, I would say, of the college experience, both getting to that transition point when they leave and living through the first six weeks. The first thing we wanted to talk about is Move In Day. That is quite an emotional can be crazy day. I know I have two sons and it was totally different for each one of my two sons the experience of Move In Day. The first thing we want to say is you want to read all the information that comes to your son or daughter about Move-in Day, so that information, first of all, is not going to come to you, it’s going to come to your kids. You want to find out what the system is going to be like. Colleges and universities have been doing this for years and years and they know what they’re doing. So if they tell you to come at nine o’clock in the morning, it probably makes sense to come right at nine o’clock in the morning. It’s. I would listen to all the directions that they give you.

Vicki Nelson: 5:45

I’m going to jump in a little bit. You’re talking about the time. You know, if they say come at nine, and you say, well, you know, I think I’m the kind of person who always likes to be early, maybe we’ll get there at eight, chances are you will sit in your car in a long line at eight o’clock because they said nine o’clock, because that’s when they want you and they often do it in rolling times. So you might be told nine o’clock or you might be told 10 o’clock, and if you get there at nine o’clock for your 10 o’clock time, you’re probably going to sit in your car. So that timing really does make a difference.

Lynn Abrahams: 6:38

It does, and I know at our college. What happens is you drive up and then the athletes come out and they run out and help students bring their stuff into their room. So it’s usually a well-oiled system that you want to follow. Before you even get to that point, though, there’s going to be the preparing for move-in day, which is packing and organizing stuff, and that can be really challenging as well. I know that with my kids, both of them packed the night before. They did not pack earlier. Of course I have two sons. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it?

Vicki Nelson: 7:03

Oh no, daughters, it didn’t matter. Same thing. Two in the morning the night before.

Lynn Abrahams: 7:08

The night before, and so if your kids do that, remember that that’s pretty common. I do think that once they start putting things in boxes or in garbage bags, then it becomes really real that they’re leaving. So they put it off usually as long as they can, but it will happen and eventually things will get packed. You want to think about things like gathering up all the important paperwork and putting that in one place. You know there are going to be forms that need to be handed in. You want to separate that.

Vicki Nelson: 7:47

I would put those somewhere easily accessible, you know, not put them all together in a suitcase somewhere, but because very often students need those forms to check in before they can get to their dorm.

Lynn Abrahams: 8:06

And also remember that you don’t have to bring everything. Usually you can buy things when you get there, or know what you need and then buy things when you get there. So it is a crazy day and you want to think about having patience with yourself, with your kids. It’s a crazy day.

Vicki Nelson: 8:31

Lots and lots of patience. And I would add one more thing in terms of the preparation before the day, and that is, if you’re traveling a long distance, you might want to do the traveling the day before and stay over in a hotel or something, somewhere. I know with one of our daughters. It was a pretty long trip and in order to check in at 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock in the morning, we would have had to leave practically in the middle of the night. So leaving the day before and doing the traveling and then being able to have a night and just get up in the morning and have breakfast and head out, was really nice. So think about that. But if you are thinking about doing that, make that reservation early, because you may not be the only person who has that idea in mind. And that’s especially true if it’s a large university and there are a lot of freshmen moving in. So thinking about that. So all that preparation is important. And then we get to the day, and it is a big day and it is an exciting day and it is an emotional day for everyone. And so you are going to arrive at the time they tell you to and remember that the college knows what they’re doing and that your student should be in charge on that day. As crazy as it is, this is their day so and they are very emotional and different students respond to emotions in different ways and I think we ran the gamut with our daughters you know of. I get all teary and emotional or I get very snippy and short with everyone and I needed to keep reminding myself. You know, this is just. This is the stress of the day. Not to take it personally, especially if I’m feeling the emotions of leaving my child and then my student is snipping at me about everything. It’s sort of hard and that’s where all of that patience that you were talking about it really matters a lot. So, remembering that they’re in charge, if there are questions that need to be asked, perhaps of a resident assistant, or where do we go, or how do we find, or what do we do have your student ask those questions, because this is their first opportunity to make connections with those sorts of people and not your job to do those things. If necessary, take a break and just I think I’m just going to go for a walk for a few minutes and explore the campus if emotions start to run high, and that gives everybody a little break from everyone.

Vicki Nelson: 11:25

Think a little bit and encourage your student to think a little bit about roommate situations. Sometimes roommates arrive at the same time and that’s nice because then it’s all moving in together, but they may even if the college is staggering times, roommates may arrive at different times. So if your student is the first to arrive, they might want to think about whether they can or want to wait before they settle in too much in the room until the roommate arrives and decide together who’s going to have what bed or how we’re going to arrange the furniture, rather than you know that tendency that I got here first, so I’m going to pick the best bed and all of that. And is that really the way you want to start off your roommate relationship? Students worry a lot about roommates and there’s lots to think about. We actually have an earlier episode all about roommates, everything you want to know. I think that’s Episode 21. So you might want to go back and listen to that for some suggestions about that, but it’s worth thinking about how that relationship is going to start out.

Vicki Nelson: 12:35

And then, the last thing I think that I would say, and this is probably the hardest from the parent perspective, and that is when it’s time to leave, it’s time to leave, and often, sometimes, the college doesn’t, you know, doesn’t care when you leave, and sometimes there’s a designated time. Okay, parents, it’s time for you to go. All the students need to now go off to this event or something, and there’s a tendency to want to linger or say well, maybe we’ll take our student out to dinner tonight or one last time, but at that point your student has a really important job and that’s to settle into their new home, to get to know the people they’re going to be living with. Perhaps there’s a meeting scheduled on the floor for everyone. It’s not going to be any easier to leave a half an hour later or an hour later, and so when it’s time to go, it’s time for that. You know that. Great big hug and then go.

Lynn Abrahams: 13:36

I, you know, I am remembering both of my kids going going that day, going to college, and they were really different. So, my first son told me when it was time to go. He was like, mom, I’m okay, you can go now, you can go. And I actually left a little earlier because he, he, I think it was frankly, easier for him if I wasn’t there Um, and then my, my second son, you know, I stayed right to the last last very last moment, um, so it’s, it’s different for every every kid, um, and

Lynn Abrahams: 14:14

and the other thing I want to say is that, before I left, there were certain things I had to do. I think you and I, Vicki, have talked about this before. We both felt the need to make their beds. I don’t know why I felt better leaving if the bed was made, because at least I knew they were going to you know, go to bed in a made bed and I didn’t know what was going to happen after that first night.

Vicki Nelson: 14:44

Oh no, this is probably the last time it got made for the rest of the semester.

Lynn Abrahams: 14:46

But it was important to me.

Vicki Nelson: 14:47

Yeah, and I did that with three daughters. We did a lot of move-in days, because you often don’t just do move-in day on freshman year, you do subsequent years. And so by the time we got to my third daughter and we got all of her stuff carried up to her dorm room and the first thing she did was say, that bag over there, mom, that’s the bed stuff. If you want to just get that done now, If you want to just get that done now, you can do that. So, yeah, and let them figure out how to arrange their room with their roommate. You don’t need to do that. And yeah, it’s. And it feels funny if they kind of dismiss you Okay, mom, it’s time to go, but recognizing that that’s the way they need to handle it right now and all of that. So they’re moved in.

Vicki Nelson: 15:35

And then there are some you know you hopefully have talked earlier about how you’re going to be in touch and how much you’re going to be in touch and all of that communication and they’re ready to start their new life and I think one of the things that is helpful to remind them as they’re transitioning in is that they now have a clean slate. They’re really starting from ground zero as they build their life at college. They don’t have a reputation. People don’t know them, and in high school by the time they’re seniors in high school they’ve been at least four years in high school together with everybody else, and some have been together since elementary school, so they know each other. They fall back on ways of being together.

Vicki Nelson: 16:26

You might have a good reputation or a bad reputation. You might be known as the one who is not a good student, or the one who’s always in trouble or whatever, or you might be known as the head of the class. But when they’re starting it’s a clean slate. And so, reminding them that in these first few weeks as they transition into college, they need to think about who they want to be and who they want to be known as, and that is such a welcome thing to so many students I can reinvent myself. But it’s also a very scary thing, and I think it’s especially scary to those students who have had a wonderful reputation and now they can’t fall back on that and they have to start all over creating themselves. So I think that’s a good conversation to have early on.

Lynn Abrahams: 17:21

And I think that once they arrive they may be thinking that it’s going to just get better and better and better, or there’s going to be this clear progression. And yet I think it’s helpful to think about moving to college a little bit like moving to another country, and there’s so much to learn. There’s sort of a culture shock when you get there because there’s so much to learn and I think that sometimes we expect things to just move in a line, sort of from difficult to better, but there’s this sort of up and down thing that happens. There’s this W sort of up and down and up and down kind of progression.

Lynn Abrahams: 18:18

I think that often the beginning is the honeymoon. At the very beginning, everybody’s new it’s fun, food trucks and their activities all set up for the first year especially, and all kinds of that. It’s fun and it starts off pretty cool. And then that period can last a short period. It could be a day or two, or it could be the first month of school, could be the honeymoon. But then at some point there’s going to be some reality hitting. Some things may go wrong, there might be some surprises, there might be some feeling of not feeling like they have friends yet, or the food may be awful or they might have a lot of rainy days. You know, in the brochures, when you look at college, it’s always sunny and it always has happy students and you don’t really see some of the realities that the students are going to bump into. So that might be the first dip.

Vicki Nelson: 19:29eah, and I think when that happens to them and they have spent a lot of time looking at the brochures and the website and all of that and they feel as though I don’t fit here now because I’m not feeling like all of those students whose pictures I saw, or all of those pictures from my friends being posted on Facebook and Instagram and whatever, which are all their best moments. So it really can be a shocker when oh, wait a minute, and my work and my courses seems really really hard, all of those things. Yeah that’s the dip.

Lynn Abrahams: 20:11

and it’s not bad during the summer to have some conversations about this normal progression that there will be dips, there will be ups and downs.

Vicki Nelson: 20:23

Students who understand that and are prepared for this can get through it. I think a little better

Lynn Abrahams: 20:32

Right. And I think the dipping still continues, because once they bump into problems and figure out that there are resources, figure out that they can, you know, solve some of the problems, there might be a later dip after that where, all of a sudden, but that sense of solving the problems and feeling like I’ve adjusted, that’s another high,

Vicki Nelson: 20:54

Yeah, that’s the middle of the W, so it went down. And then it came up. Oh, I got through this. I’m all better. It’s great, I’ve survived. And then that doesn’t necessarily last yeah.

Lynn Abrahams: 21:04

Right. So this whole process is all about accepting a new life, developing new patterns, developing a new structure and it takes again some patience and some trial and error, making mistakes and then fixing mistakes, going back and forth.

Vicki Nelson: 21:45

And recognizing that roller coaster that’s up and down. So when that second dip happens and they thought they had it all solved and now this second dip happens, that often is really the big one because they expect a little dip.

Vicki Nelson: 21:59

They know, oh, it’s great at the beginning and then reality will hit. Oh, now I’ve got that solved. And this second one, I think, is the one that takes. It’s the big surprise for a lot of students and is much more of an internal sort of thing. Now I’m questioning my values. Now I’m questioning whether I’m at the right school. Did I choose the right major? You know that’s a big one. But if you’ve had that conversation before and they know that, then there’s that last part of the W. You know it will go up. And, as you say, you know, now I’ve accepted this new way of life and I fit in and I understand college. That’s, that’s huge.

Vicki Nelson: 22:39

And as all of that is going on, many students hit what, what you know, homesickness, and everybody’s, I think, a little braced for that. The student says, okay, I might be homesick, I might not, I don’t know. And everybody’s on a different timetable. Not every student goes through it, but a lot do. And sometimes we as parents, we brace ourselves and wait. And when it doesn’t happen in the first week and it might, it might be the second day. But if it doesn’t happen in the first week we think we’re home free. But it can come, you know, a lot of at a lot of points in that W through those first six weeks or so.

Vicki Nelson: 23:26

And I think you know, one of the things that is interesting is to ask is this really homesickness? I think we use that term really rather broadly, where it’s, you know, missing home. I miss my family, I miss home. And that is part of what students feel sometimes and I think it might be interesting to remind them that a month ago they couldn’t wait to get away from their family and they weren’t even talking to us. And now, you know, they feel like they want to be there and really helping them think a little bit. Is it home that they are missing? What would they be doing at home? And their friends aren’t home, their friends have gone to college. Really, what they’re missing very often is just that feeling of normalcy, that feeling of the familiar and the routines, because college is not yet routine and normal. It’s all strange and crazy. And if they recognize that it’s not home that they’re missing, it’s routine and a sense of familiar, then they can do a little bit more work in helping to make college feel more normal and familiar, that it’s a different way to approach it.

Vicki Nelson: 24:53

As parents, I think we want to be careful not to minimize it. We like to jump in oh, it’s not that bad, it can’t be that bad. Oh, just hang in there, because if they’re feeling something, it’s very real, and so that’s when good listening skills and allow them to be sad for a little while and to say it’s okay to be sad. You just need to get through it a little bit and encourage them to get out of their room, to meet people, to volunteer for something, to try a new club, to think about how they’re eating and sleeping, because that makes a big difference.

Vicki Nelson: 25:30

And maybe yeah, I don’t know maybe even suggest is there someone you can talk to at this point? Resident assistants, who are students who are trained to help in the residence halls, are a great person because many of them have gone through it and they’ve been trained in how to help students deal with it. Maybe a counselor. Most almost every college has a health center and has a counseling center, and they might even want to do that. And then, of course, parents have a job and that’s to send care packages and cards and letters and all of those things. There’s nothing like getting the little notice in your mailbox that there’s a package for you and you know, just trying to kind of stay upbeat a little bit and help them with those things, because we will get phone calls.

Lynn Abrahams: 26:21

Yes, yes, I would like to talk about the phone calls a little bit.

Vicki Nelson:

THE phone call.

Lynn Abrahams:

it’s what I call the phone call, because it’s not. It’s not a text in the middle of the day, it’s not. It’s not a check-in phone call, it’s the phone call that comes at two in the morning, where your student may be feeling overwhelmed, unhappy, wanting to go home, just needing to vent perhaps, but it can be really intense. They can call you and say I’ve, you know I’ve, I’ve had it, I. This is too hard for me and at that point I think that what they want is to be listened to.

Lynn Abrahams: 27:14

I think it’s important as a parent to just listen to, not to resist the urge to suggest to fix things at that moment, because what they want is to vent and you are a safe person and you are the one who will probably hear the worst of it. And I think that what often happens is that the student, after they vent, will say goodnight and go to sleep and be able to sleep because they’ve let it all out. And then you, as the parent, are often up all night because you’re worried, you’re worried, sick, and then you call the next day or the next afternoon and you check in to see how things are going, and often it’s all over or they figured out ways to deal with it. And so you know, I do think that often our role as parents is to be that sounding board and to be the person that they can show all their deepest fears to.

Lynn Abrahams: 28:23

Now. That said, I mean obviously there are many kinds of problems that can happen, and so you know your kids and we’re joking a little bit about the phone call, but you know who your kids are. But just be aware that often this does happen. I once went to a gathering in my neighborhood I’ll never forget this of parents and it was towards the end of the school year and it was parents of one of the daughter in that family actually went to the college I was working at and the mom started to talk about the phone call that she got soon into the first year and other parents started to talk about the phone call and then people realized that they weren’t alone. You know this is pretty common.

Vicki Nelson: 29:18

Phones are ringing all over the country in the first few weeks of school.

Vicki Nelson: 29:24

And you know, I think we often talk about the 24-hour rule, which is, you know, when you get that kind of phone call, often say listening and letting them vent and not necessarily trying to solve their problem for them right then, but then also to say let’s just let this sit for 24 hours, let’s talk tomorrow, and then we’ll strategize and think about what we should do about this, whether you should come home, whether you should not come home, how we approach whatever the issue is, and that 24 hours often is what they need, and then it’s less emotional and more rational perhaps. Or, as you said, it has fixed itself and gone from there. So just keeping that phone call in perspective.

So I think we wanted to just talk a little bit quickly about some of the things around that first six weeks. The first six weeks is really an important time. Colleges recognize it. Many colleges have very organized planning and activities and events for the first six weeks for students. One statistic that I saw from just a few years ago was that more than half of students who leave college leave in the first six weeks. So if we can get them through that first six weeks absolutely not a guarantee of anything, but the odds start to tilt a little bit in the favor of students will do well.

Vicki Nelson: 31:03

We had an earlier episode and opportunity to interview Dr Silas Pierman, who is a coordinator of first-year studies, first-year students, and he talked a lot about some of the things that students face in their first few weeks and how to deal with it. That’s back in episode 12. So you might want to go back and listen to that episode and think about that. But there’s some things.

Vicki Nelson: 31:34

If we stop and think about it, we understand that there are reasons why these first six weeks are so crucial for students. They’re facing new social networks and there’s a lot of pressure to fit in, and a lot of the pressure is the student putting the pressure on themselves to try to fit in and find their people, find their friends and they’re often friends of convenience early on the people who live down the hall from them or that are in a class with them. That may change later, but for now they just are trying to fit in. And that pressure also sometimes comes around in things like alcohol and sex and drugs. Those are things that many students are for the first time facing on their own and without any guideposts other than the important conversations you’ve had over the summer and we have to trust our kids to make good decisions. But that makes the first six weeks particularly stressful for some students.

Lynn Abrahams: 32:47

And then there’s the academics. That’s a whole new world for so many students. There are a lot of differences between high school and college when it concerns the academics. We do have a whole episode on that.

Vicki Nelson: 33:05

I think it was episode 9. I think it’s 9.

Lynn Abrahams: 33:11

Because it’s so different. This might be the first time that students have to rely on a syllabus, really rely on a syllabus.

Vicki Nelson: 33:21

Which is the thing that the professor hands out on the first day. That says this is everything you have to do all semester.

Lynn Abrahams: 33:27

All semester. Another challenge is that every professor is different in what they expect, how they expect assignments to be handed in where they should hand in assignments. So our students are learning so much about how to be a student in those first six weeks and that can feel really, really challenging. I know that for some students it’s going to be crucial that they figure out what the resources are.

Lynn Abrahams: 34:02

Is there a writing center? Is there a you know speaking center? Is there a math center? Where do they get tutoring? Where do they get extra support? Because it’s really important to jump in at the very beginning, to feel confident. So this is a big shift.

Vicki Nelson: 34:24

Yeah, and they’re really struggling too, I think, in those first six weeks with their autonomy and their independence, that they have to do things for themselves, and whether it’s figuring out how they’re going to manage their time, or doing their laundry, or getting themselves to bed at night and up in the morning because they have had somebody else who maybe helped them do that Just all of those things I’m suddenly on my own.

Lynn Abrahams: 34:55

Plus, there’s a lot more social interaction. So, it’s easy to stay up half the night, because if your floor, if all the students are staying up half the night, you might be too, and so there’s some different pulls.

Vicki Nelson: 35:12

And so I think parents sometimes say, well, all of that’s well and good, but what do I do? Because, yes, my student has all of these things they have to figure out, but I’m at a distance, I’m on the other end of the phone line, and I think there are some things that parents can talk to their students about when we realize how much they’re facing in these first six weeks. And one good start, which also has to do with this independence thing, is pay attention to communication that’s coming from the school. Students don’t like email. They think email is old-fashioned, it’s for us.

Vicki Nelson: 35:55

But really just encouraging them are you opening and paying attention to whatever’s coming from the school, what’s happening, know what’s going on, know what programming is happening for the schools, do a lot in those first six weeks, so sort of touching base with your student and say are you reading the stuff? Do you know what’s going on, what activities, what do you need to do or not do? And encouraging them just to get out. Dorm rooms are so comfortable these days. You’ve got your computer there, which means you can Facebook or FaceTime or whatever with your friends and you can do your studying online and you can access the library resources online and you’ve got a microwave and you’ve got a fridge and you’ve got. Why do I ever have to leave my room? So really encouraging them to get out and do things and learn about their surroundings. Get a campus map and start to walk around and just know where things are and find your sense of place, connect with other students and find your people. Ask a friend to go to dinner or something like that.

Lynn Abrahams: 37:12

You know, I’m reminded of one of my favorite writers who writes about colleges, surviving college, and that’s Harlan Cohen, and he wrote a book called the Naked Roommate. He talks a lot in that book about how important it is for students at the very beginning to find places. People and patience. To find places, like he suggests. Suggest to your students find three places on campus that feel good to you, and then suggesting to students find five people that you like. That’s it, no more, you don’t need a gang, Just five people. And then reminding your students to have patience with the transition and with the beginning.

Vicki Nelson: 37:53

That’s great specific advice and sometimes that specific advice I think is really helpful to them, reminding them to eat and to sleep. Eat wisely Cereal three times a day is okay once in a while, but not always. And you know, to try to get some sleep because that’s the biggest factor.

Lynn Abrahams: 38:18

I think, sleep, I think, is the biggest.

Vicki Nelson: 38:20

And getting the you know, the healthy lifestyle going, finding their resources, and maybe, you know, just sort of try to do one thing every day that pushes your comfort zone just a little bit, whether that’s asking somebody new to you know, walk to class with them, or introduce yourself to someone, join a new club, try something, but just continuing to inch their way out. So those are things I think that parents can do to encourage students through these first six weeks, and then there are a few things that parents can do on their end as well.

Lynn Abrahams: 39:00

Right, and on our end, as parents you know our job is to listen. Our job might be to suggest they stay on campus. I know so many students you know do want to come home at the very beginning, and those first six weeks are really, really important. If they’re terribly, terribly homesick, it might be better for you, if you live close enough, to go visit them on their turf instead of having them come home. I think that as parents, as we watch them, we do have to use our instincts. If there’s something really seriously going on wrong, that’s one thing. If we need to back off and let them experience the experience, that’s another thing.

Lynn Abrahams: 39:54

Again, this favorite author, Harlan Cohen, talks a lot about how important it is for parents to become comfortable with the uncomfortable and how important it is to tell our students that they need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. It’s so interesting how little training we all get in that we expect things to go well and go well quickly, and yet sometimes sitting with it is the only way it’s going to change. I know for me as a parent, I will admit that it’s easier for me to be uncomfortable about my own stuff, you know to sit with that than it is to watch my child. If, if one of my kids is suffering, I, I, I, it’s really. You have to hold me back. You know I want to get in there and help, and yet it’s crucial that we have faith that the uncomfortable is going to shift. It doesn’t stay um around usually and we need to let them experience it in order to get through it. It’s hard really hard.

Vicki Nelson: 41:13

It is hard and it is harder to watch someone else, our child, be uncomfortable, and the more experiences they’ve had with that, perhaps the more strategies and all they already have for that. And then I just keep saying the bottom line for parents then is send care packages. Send care packages and personal care packages are wonderful, I mean you can buy. There are services now that you can get to do that, and that’s fine too. But you know, or even just a card we used to send silly cards to our girls sometimes or just a note or a comic out of the newspaper that you think they will enjoy. Something that’s mail and those sorts of things that are just fun to get.

Lynn Abrahams: 42:09

Even just little text things to stay in touch. You know like we often text. If I read an article that I think one of my sons is going to enjoy, you know text text them and just say you know I’m thinking of you and just those little touches sometimes can be very helpful.

Vicki Nelson: 42:20

Yeah .So there is a lot and these first six weeks are important. And these first six weeks are important and most students can make that transition. But that support from home and that help and that understanding and the more you can talk to them ahead of time about some of these, they can anticipate them. They’re not taken by surprise. They oh I understand now why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. Here are some things I can do that maybe will make things better in the future, or this is a different way to think about something or look at something. So it’s a whole progression.

We hope you’ve had a chance to listen to all three parts of this little series about using the summer to get ready and then making that transition into freshman year. It’s a busy time, it’s an important time, but it’s a fun time too. It’s a very exciting moment for everybody as your student heads off to college. So we hope this was helpful and we’re really grateful that you’ve spent some time listening to us. We hope that some of it is advice that you can use If you know someone else who has a student heading off to college. Word of mouth is our best way of getting people to find what we would like to share. So please feel free to share the podcast with others.

Vicki Nelson: 43:36

If you haven’t subscribed, you may want to to share the podcast with others. If you haven’t subscribed, you may want to subscribe to the podcast, so you’ll get each new one as it comes along.

Vicki Nelson: 43:57

If you have a chance to leave us a review.Wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. We really rely on those and that’s really helpful for us. We will put show notes on the College Parent Central website. If you go to collegeparentcentral.com/podcast, some of the previous episodes that expand on some of the topics we talked about will be there, and I know we will link to Harlan Cohen’s book because Lynn always likes to link to that one, and it’s a great one. There’s a version for students and one for parents, and we’ll link to both of those there and a couple of others that might be particularly helpful to you for that transition. So thanks again for joining us. We hope we’ll have another opportunity to talk to you and we’ll see you next time.

Lynn Abrahams: 44:49

See you later, bye-bye.